TRENDnet to showcase 802.11ac WLAN router

TRENDnet, a company known for its network products, has decided to show something cool at CES 2012. We got word that company plans to show its new 1300 Mbps 802.11ac Wireless Routers and Adapters.

Since 450Mbit routers with three antennas are the best you can do today, this sounds like a huge leap forward. It is not clear if the company comes with 866Mbps or 1300Mbps first, as the 802.11ac standard is still under development but the actual products based on this new standard are promised for late 2012, early 2013. It will probably come close to CES 2013.

So, the new 802.11ac standard has yet to be finalized, but the slowest you can expect from a one-antenna device, e.g. handheld at 80MHz channel is about 433Mbps. If you add eight antennas, the current maximum for the 1600MHz standard, again at maximum frequencies per channel, all operating at 6GHz you can score an astonishing 6.93 Gbits/second.

This is all of course on paper and the actual real life speed will be slower, thus it will take a while until we see actual products based on this new standard in stores. Still, seeing a demonstration of 1300 Mbps 802.11ac in a few days sounds exciting. The official announcement is expected on January 9th.